The Case of the Missing Memories
The Moment of Crisis
The phone was ringing nonstop.
Walmart
Kroger.
Same complaint. Same urgency.
“We have video footage from our stores. Women enter the sweet baked goods aisle…and then they back out. They buy nothing.
This company was the category captain.
— It was their responsibility — and their reputation — on the line.
The Problem as he imagined It
— The president did what any rational leader would do.
First call: the ad agency
Their diagnosis was confident and quick.
“We’ve taken too many price upticks. Let’s run a buy-one-get-one promotion.”
It was tried.
It failed.
Second call: the management consultants
Two-month study. Equally confident. Entirely different answer.
“There are way too many SKUs. The consumer is overwhelmed by choice. Delist and streamline.”
When the Playbook Failed
By the time he called us:
Key customers were losing patience
New products were stalling before launch
The category was shrinking
Bonuses — and careers — were at risk
What We Discovered Instead
We stopped guessing and started listening. First to consumers. Real people, regressed and in a state of profound relaxation. Able to remember.
What emerged wasn’t confusion.
It was mistrust.
Consumers told us something startlingly honest.
“If I bring the cookies home, I know what will happen. At 3 a.m., that package will call out to me. It will wake me up. I’ll eat through the first sleeve.”
She couldn’t trust herself with the brand. She couldn’t trust the brand.
Where once there had been comfort —
three cookies, a glass of milk, childhood safety,
‘My mother loves me.’ —
there was now fear. Loss of control.
And,
“If she loved me so much, why did she addict me to something that puts fat on my thighs?”
She made the only decision that felt safe.
Don’t bring it home.
The Real Problem (Finally Named)
This wasn’t a pricing issue.
Or a shelf-space confusion issue.
Or even a product issue.
It was an emotional contract violation.
“I don’t trust myself with you. I have to bring myself home from the grocery store. I don’t have to bring you.”
Listening Wider — and Deeper
We brought that core understanding to experts, members of our 2,500 Agent Provocateurs.
Psychologists
Nutritionists
Weight-Loss counselors
Addiction specialists
Sensory professionals
Packaging and product designers
They all came at the issue from their own vantage points, and agreed directionally.
“Portion control is not about deprivation. It’s about permission.”
It takes time to register fullness. Twenty minutes. And, twenty hand-to-mouth motions.
A full sleeve of cookies at 3 in the morning can undo a week of good intentions.
The Hidden Asset No One Remembered
We then gathered internal stakeholders
Sales.
Marketing.
Packaging.
Manufacturing.
Finance.
Corporate C-Suite Leadership.
That’s when stakeholder memory unlocked value.
The company had purchased equipment 20 years earlier. Equipment capable of producing small, wafer-scale version of its famous baked goods.
The machinery was still there.
Unused.
Collecting dust in backrooms of plants around the country.
Which meant something critical.
No major capital investment required.
The Breakthrough
We reframed the category promise around a single word.
Control.
No less joy.
Not a diet food.
Not about willpower. Or guilt. Or regret.
Just control.
The result was deceptively simple once we’d thought of it — and revolutionary.
The 100-Calorie Pack
What Happened Next
We launched as an etirely new sub-brand
It become the most profitable in the entire portfolio — and remains so
We redefined portion standards across categories
Cookies.
Popcorn.
Chips.
Crackers.
The industry followed.
Why This Worked
Because the solution wasn’t invented.
It was remembered.
What This Case Reveals
Consumers have vivid memories ready to be reignited
Expert wisdom brings the best, leading edge thinking to bear, ready to find new solutions, not mimic old ones
Internal capabilities are forgotten unless they are valued
When people aren’t invited to share what they know, wisdom stays buried. Along with answers.
When they are —
and are truly heard —
growth follows. Margin too.
The Case of Death by a Thousand Cuts
When success becomes the threat
A major American food company developed a portfolio of new brand propositions with strong consumer validation, operational feasibility, and compelling commercial forecasts. Despite internal projections indicating the potential for approximately $100 million in annual revenue by the third year, the initiative was systematically undermined and ultimately abandoned. The failure was not market‑driven; it was organizational.
The work was never rejected
The company occupied a leading position in its category, supported by established brands, national distribution, and deep institutional knowledge of its consumers. In response to evolving demand patterns and increasing competitive pressure, leadership authorized the formation of a dedicated new products group charged with developing growth beyond the company’s legacy lines.
The team produced a cohesive set of brand‑aligned propositions. Consumer research demonstrated strong interest. Manufacturing constraints were minimal. Distribution inquiries suggested retailer receptivity. Financial modeling showed meaningful incremental upside with manageable risk.
The work moved through formal review gates and received provisional approval. Initial internal presentations were well received. The propositions did not threaten existing SKUs directly; they extended the brand architecture into adjacencies consistent with long‑term strategy.
At no point did the proposals fail on technical, consumer, or commercial grounds.
From here forward, the work stopped being theoretical.
None of it mattered.
A DISABLING BELIEF STRUCTURE
Innovation ownership was fragmented across legacy business units
Success of the new products group implied loss of authority elsewhere
Incentive structures rewarded protection of existing revenue, not creation of new revenue
Internal governance enabled delay and re‑litigation rather than decision‑making
The key proponent of the new product line was not well liked in the company
The CEO who hired him left to embark on a new position with a different CPG food company
The Choice
MOVE FORWARD (Narrow) DELAY (Wide)
Visible Conflict Procedural Safety
Ownership of Cost Diffuse Ownership
Short-Term Instability No immediate Cost
Clear Accountability Plausible Deniability
Only one of these feels neutral
From Validation to Exposure
The initiative entered a vulnerable phase precisely when its prospects became credible.
As commercialization approached, resistance emerged not as overt opposition but as procedural friction. Questions already resolved were reopened. Additional approval layers were introduced. Timelines extended without formal explanation. Concerns shifted from strategic alignment to resource allocation, then to hypothetical risks unsupported by data.
Critically, no single decision killed the work. Instead, the initiative was eroded through a sequence of “reasonable” interventions, each defensible in isolation.
Underlying this behavior was a zero‑sum interpretation of success. Revenue generated by new products would necessarily belong to someone. Credit would accrue unevenly. Existing leaders, whose authority was tied to stewardship of current lines, perceived innovation not as enterprise growth but as internal displacement.
In this environment, delay became a risk‑free strategy. Preventing success required no explicit veto—only patience.
The organization optimized for internal stability, not external opportunity.
Process as Weapon: the Work Eroded
Questions reopened
Approval layers added
Timelines extended
Risks reframed without new data
Responsibility distributed
No single action was decisive. Yet taken together: Dust bin of company history.
Final Judgment
The initiative was eventually shelved without formal rejection.
Resources were reallocated.
Priorities were ‘re-aligned.’
Momentum dissipated.
The products never reached market.
Within several years, competitors launched offerings that closely mirrored the original concepts, validating the underlying consumer insight. The projected revenue opportunity was not replaced through alternative initiatives or even the ‘stick to our knitting’ philosophy of brand promotion.
What remained was a clear illustration of how large organizations can neutralize innovation without ever acknowledging they have done so.
The greatest risk to innovation was not failure.
It was past success. (And office politics.)
Innovation that lacks structural protection is unlikely to survive internal politics, regardless of its external merit. When governance allows internal stakeholders to treat growth as a threat rather than a collective outcome, systems will default to preservation over progress.
In such environments, the greatest risk to innovation is not future failure—but today’s success.
The Case of Commissions v. Client
The Setting
At a major European luxury fashion house, small space ads in The New York Times and WWD did exactly what they meant to do.
They drew in a younger, entry-level Client.
She arrived on her lunch break.
She bought a handbag.
She left.
What she never did was explore.
Not shoes.
Not ready-to-wear.
Certainly not the third-floor couture salon.
The maison faced a subtle but serious question.
Could a rushed, transaction Client be invited into the deeper world of the brand?
What the Brand Wanted
Encourage exploration — and discovery — across floors
Introduce Clients to the seasonal collection’s look and attitude
Leverage the expertise of seasoned associates
Elevate a transaction into a relationship
Luxury depends on context, continuity and confidence.
Their absence in the transactional lunch break moment created the barrier: efficiency masquerading as impact.
What Was Really Happening
The behavior on the main floor told a divisive story.
Upstairs
High-net worth Clients moved fluidly between departments,
often escorted by ‘my advisor’ —
a relationship cultivated over years.
Downstairs
Lunch-hour shoppers moved fast.
Purchased on item.
Left.
And crucially —
they were rarely invited further.
The Invisible Barrier
The friction wasn’t attitudinal.
It was economic.
Couture-level associates believed:
Lunch-hour Clients held limited potential
Time spent educating them diluted focus on proven, high-ticket relationships
The younger, less experienced sales associates belonged on the main floor until they learned their craft
Handbag associates worried:
Escorting Clients upstairs meant missing peak sales
Commission loss during the business hour of the day
Ambiguity over who ‘owned’ the Client — and subsequent sales
Behind the scenes, a quiet question lingered:
If I do the work, who benefits the most?
The Core Issue
This wasn’t about selling techniques.
Or training gaps.
Or even mindset.
It was the commission system.
Key Frictions (At a Glance)
Commission rewarded department loyalty, not Client continuity
Cross-selling introduced income risk
Associates optimized for personal earnings, not brand cohesion
Management underestimated how incentives shape behavior
What the System Taught the Sales Floor
Within the rules provided, the behaviors were entirely rational.
Time spent collaborating = potential earnings loss
Inviting exploration= accountability without compensation
Helping another department = dilution of personal performance
Hesitation replaced welcome.
Not because assciates lacked care —
because the system penalized care.
What the Client Felt (Even if Unspoken)
Luxury depends on seamlessness.
What Clients noticed wasn’t the math.
It was the moment.
The half-pause.
The subtle hand-off that never happened.
The sense that internal boundaries mattered more than curiosity.
The brand voice fractured at the point of sales.
And without intending to,
the retailer allowed compensation logic to override brand promise.
The Turning Point
The issue persisted until senior leadership looked past the performance spreadsheet
and into structural meaning.
They asked the better questions:
What behaviors does our compensation system actually encourage?
And,
What does the entry level Client’s need state demand of us?
What Changed
The easy part was adjusting the commission system:
The brand needed to give up a bit
The junior sales associates and the couture advisors needed give up a bit on each transaction in order to benefit more on each other’s sale.
The important idea: Learning to trust — and incentivize — a life-time value to every Client who begins to walk the brand’s road.
The real change was a new willingness to revise ‘how we do things’ to meet the needs of a new customer:
Time compression and constraint.
The Subtle but Powerful Shift
Invitation-only, nuit privée (after dark) salons designed to encourage those rushed, transactional Clients to return for refined, intimate, luxurious evenings.
Entry-level Clients were invited, not rushed.
Associates were free to educate, introduce, explore with this new clientele.
Exploration became a privilege, not an inconvenience.
What This Case Reveals
Incentive systems are never neutral.
They communicate values more powerfully than:
Training modules
Brand language
Look books
Store design
When compensation conflicts with Client experience,
Compensation wins.
Every time.
Luxury lives or dies at the intersection of
structure and feeling —
and structure speaks first.